


not you

by zayners



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 14:45:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5131478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zayners/pseuds/zayners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>loosely based off of @tattedkisspers on Twitter's prompt: "Au where a clock counts down to the moment you meet your soulmate. Louis and Harry meet but the clock doesn't stop."</p>
            </blockquote>





	not you

**Author's Note:**

> hello :)
> 
> i'll be honest, i'm not really proud of this. i genuinely think it could've turned out better and i'm sorry i didn't do the prompt justice, but it's the first thing in months i actually finished writing, so despite the content, i'm quite happy about it. :) it's short and may seem rushed, but i enjoyed working on it a lot. :)
> 
> and to my friend mallory, this is for you.

      **H** e woke up in an unfamiliar room, with his head on a pillow that didn’t smell like him.

What the fuck happened last night?

He looked at the body sprawled out next to him. The boy was still asleep, breathing even, eyelids closed.

His head hurt like hell, but he knew himself enough to remember that this wasn’t something he did. No matter how wasted he got, he never let anyone take him to bed.

So this boy must be pretty fucking special.

Harry tried to get up, but just ended up rocking the old, rickety bed and startling the other boy in his sleep.

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed, but he's still not fully awake. Harry waited, staring at the boy’s closed eyes.

And when they opened, everything stopped, and all there’s left to do is stare back at the sea of blue-green staring at him.

That sounded cliché as fuck but it’s what supposed to happen when you meet your soulmate, right? Everything stopped.

They lived in a world where soulmates existed—where finding The One was an adventure; a tunnel with light at the end; a maze with a finish line.

The Clock—it’s never wrong. It starts counting on the day that you were born, and stops when you meet your soulmate. It’s all that Harry has ever known.

Harry kept his Clock hanging on a thin chain and wore it as a necklace.

The chain suddenly felt heavier now, and he’s suddenly more aware that it’s right there.

That feeling he just felt—it has never happened before. Harry has met hundreds of people in his lifetime, but that feeling’s foreign. See, he wasn’t even sure what exactly “that” was.

Is it his turn now? Is this nameless boy with blue-green eyes finally _It_?

He grabbed the chain and—“Don’t you dare look at that damn clock,” a sleepy voice interrupted.

Harry looked at the boy. (Or should he start calling him The Boy now?)

“Don’t look at it,” the nameless boy repeated. “Does it really matter? Just let it happen.”

‘ _Just let it happen_ ’ started echoing in Harry’s head.

He swallowed. His mouth felt too dry. “Right,” he said quietly; unsurely.

Nameless Boy smirked. “Right,” he repeated. “Now, what are you doing still standing there? Come back here and cuddle with me.”

Harry smiled at that. How could he not? And as he climbed back into Nameless Boy’s bed, he thought maybe he didn’t need his Clock to know if this boy's it for him.

 

      **N** ow, it has been four months since it happened. Slowly, Nameless Boy stopped being nameless, and became Louis.

Louis—the boy Harry visited at his job at some local coffee shop every day. Louis, the boy who drew little cartoons on Harry’s coffee cup everyday even though he couldn’t draw for shit. (Harry thought they were cute anyway.)

Louis, the boy who made Harry forget all about Clocks and everything he knew about soulmates.

Louis, who made Harry take off his Clock—still without looking at it—and keep it locked up in one of his sock drawers because he’s convinced it’s useless now that he’s found Louis.

He's just letting it happen.

Being with Louis has been the most amazing four months of his life. Or maybe that’s not how it is.

Maybe he can say that his life started when he met Louis—that he started _living_ when he met him.

Harry has always been the ideal everything—golden boy with the perfect hair and perfect grades and the cleanest permanent record. He lived—or existed—through following strict rules of life he never dared to break. Until Louis.

“Seriously? You’ve never tried _thif befoh_ ,” Louis said through a mouthful of his grilled cheese & chocolate cereal sandwich. No, he wasn’t eating chocolate cereal and a grilled cheese sandwich. He was eating a grilled cheese and chocolate cereal sandwich. Like, together.

Because that’s what Louis was—he was weird food combinations and rule-breaking.

He was midnight driving way past the speed limit with the windows down.

He was crashing weddings, getting drunk and having hangovers that made you feel like dying the morning after, but still having absolutely no regrets.

Harry was sure that theirs was a love story that would go down in history—that people would be talking about them: those two guys who fell in love without the Clock; those two guys who were brave enough to challenge fate.

He was so sure. Was.

 

    **T** hey were in his car. 2:47 a.m. It was 2:47 a.m. when it happened.

Harry knew, because he was staring at the clock on his dashboard, his heart feeling like it could jump out of his chest.

Louis was right in the passenger seat, looking at him.

“Harry,” Louis said slowly. Harry couldn’t bring himself to look at him. “Harry, what’s wrong?” Louis asked.

“Louis, I...” Harry drifted off. Just say it, the voice in his head urged.

“Just say it, Harry,” Louis echoed.

So Harry does.

“I love you,” He finally said, and then silence.

Harry thought he’d feel relieved after finally letting that out. But he wasn’t.

Louis hasn’t said anything, but a feeling in his chest told him that something was coming. And it wasn't I love you, too.

“Harry...” Louis started off. Harry waited, and finally convinced himself to face the other boy.

Louis looked like he was going to say something, but stopped himself at the last second. Instead , he reached into his pocket, and pulled out—

A Clock.

He looked at it for a second, before a pained smile ghosted his face. And that’s when Harry knew.

Louis’ Clock hasn’t stopped.

He didn’t have his own Clock with him, but he knew it was still sitting in his drawer at home, ticking like the last four months didn’t happen. If Louis’ hadn’t stopped, then his hadn’t either.

“It hasn’t stopped, Harry,” Louis said. Harry didn’t think it could hurt any more than it already did, but somehow, hearing it said out loud—it's worse than fucking hell.

“Yeah, it hasn’t.”

It was silent for a minute, neither of them wanting to speak.

And when Louis finally did, Harry’s heart finally broke.

“So I guess this is where we end,” he said. There was a hint of a laugh in his voice, but no humor at all.

“What if we try, Lou?” Harry asked. “What if we try? We stay together and see what happens.”

He didn’t know what he was saying. Must be his heart speaking.

“It’s not that easy, Harry—”

“Why can’t it be?” Harry cut him off. “We stay together and see what happens. It shouldn’t be that hard, Lou, we can—”

“No.” It was Louis who cut him off this time. Harry’s head was starting to spin. He run a hand through his hair, let out a huge breath and rested his head on the steering wheel.

“I lied, you know,” Louis said.

“What?”

“I lied,” he repeated. “On the night that we met, I saw that your Clock hasn’t stopped. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to see how it felt.”

“How what felt?” Harry asked. It sounded stupid, but he can’t exactly think straight. All this heartache is messing with his head.

“Falling in love with someone who isn’t your soulmate,” Louis replied, like that would answer everything.

Louis sighed before speaking again. “When I was young, my granddad told me this story. About a girl he fell in love with, who wasn’t my grandmother. They met, and their Clocks didn’t stop, but that didn’t stop them from trying. I was confused. I thought, what’s the point? If you already knew who your soulmate was, then why bother with someone who isn’t?

And then he told me, _that’s part of the story, son—a chapter_. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, but...” he trailed off.

“But now you do,” Harry finished for him.

“Yeah, I do,” Louis smiled sadly. “My granddad and she tried, but they’re not in charge, I guess. They were just fooling themselves. Your Clock stops because it’s telling you that it’s time to stop writing—that you’ve found your ending. That’s what Granddad told me. And while it hasn’t, you’re just on a chapter. Maybe that’s all we’re meant to be, Harry— _chapters in each other’s books, not the whole story_.”

Not the whole story.

Is that right?

“I understand,” Harry said after a while. What else was there left to stay?

“Not fully,” Louis chuckled. “But hopefully someday you do.”

Louis clicked the lock and pushed the car door open. “Well, I guess this is it.”

Harry stayed quiet.

“I’m off to write my next chapters now,” Louis joked, but turned serious. “You should, too, Harry.”

Harry still didn’t say anything.

And just before Louis stepped out—out of the car and out of Harry's life—he said, “Oh, and just for the record, I love you, too.”

 

 **I** t’s been a year since they broke up now. Louis was right. Harry didn’t understand him that night—not fully.

But now he does.

In 365 days, he watched people around him fall in love, without falling out of it. And it was quite a sight. There was something about soulmates that’s magical, he realized. The thought that there was someone out there who was made just for you—one who was made to love _just you_ —it was something else.

Harry fell out of love with Louis slowly, even though he fell in fast, and that’s not how his story is supposed to end.

If there’s anything he learned though, they’re two things: first, Fate’s the boss.

Yep, he is. You can lock Fate up in a box, wrap the box up in chains, bury it six feet underground and run away from it forever, there’s just no escaping Fate. One day, when you least expect it, he’ll be right at your door. There’s no use defying him. He and Louis could’ve tried, but it wouldn’t have worked out. They could’ve tried to play house for much longer, but they would never find home in each other.

And deep down, even back then, on the night they broke up, Harry knew that.

 

Second is that stories have chapters. Chapters end. And all you have to do is pick up the dam pen and start again.

And that’s how Harry found himself writing to Louis one day.

 _Dear Louis,_  
_It happened. My clock stopped. Has yours? If it has, then I am genuinely so, so happy for you. If it hasn’t, then keep looking. He’s out there, waiting for you._  
_You’re probably still wondering why the hell I’m writing to you. Well, I’d like to say thank you._  
_Thank you for loving me enough to enter my life, and loving me enough to leave it._  
_You may not be my ending, but you’ll definitely be the story I’ll be telling my future grandchildren._  
_Louis Tomlinson—he wasn’t the last, but he’ll always be my favourite chapter._

 _This is where your chapter ends, but it was a privilege to have loved you._  
_\- H._


End file.
